A survivor of the Copenhagen attack speaks: ‘If we should stop drawing cartoons, should we also stop having synagogues?’

Two years ago the Danish writer Helle Brix helped found the Lars Vilks Committee. The group of media figures from left and right came together to support the Swedish artist who has been under constant threat of death since drawing a picture of Mohammed in 2007.

‘We agreed that Mr Vilks should not be alone in the world,’ says Helle when we spoke earlier this week, ‘and if the establishment or the Swedish artists wouldn’t support him then we would. We wanted to give him a platform and a possibility to do what he used to do before he was unable to go out and meet the public because this is, of course, what disappears when you become a target, you get a lot of security around you and people are afraid to invite you. They are afraid to let you make exhibitions or have public discussions so we simply facilitate meetings in Copenhagen.’ Saturday was their eighth meeting.

Helle was beside Vilks when the shooting started. ‘I didn’t realise at first what was going on. I just said to myself, what on earth is that? And then the security guards, the Swedish security guards — because of course we always have a heavy set-up, people from Danish intelligence services, Swedish intelligence services and armed police. The Swedish security guard, he shouted “Everyone run to the back, as quickly as you can.” He also pushed Lars and me to the end of the doorway into a little storage room, locked the door and there we were under a table, Lars Vilks and I.’

‘A little later a policeman came in and we noticed a lot of blood running down his leg. He was a little confused. Lars and I realised that someone had been hit and we asked, “May we ask how serious this is?” The policeman answered that two security guards from the Danish intelligence service had been hit, a policeman, that it was not serious.